US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before departing for Baltimore County, Maryland, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., US, October 6, 2026.
Many Democratic advisors discourage talk of a likely incoming Democratic Congress pursuing the prospect Impeaching President Donald Trump because of a subservient Republican Party ready to protect the president regardless of evidence. Nevertheless, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Editorial Board says the issue must be addressed because the president’s crimes are rending the U.S. laws upon which the nation relies.
The rule of law in in jeopardy, said Barbara McQuade, a professor of practice at the University of Michigan Law School and a former U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Michigan
“[Trump’s] scowling face appears on a banner on the building that houses the U.S. Department of Justice. In that same building, Trump declared himself America’s ‘chief law enforcement officer,’ a shocking departure from chief executives in the post-Watergate era,” writes McQuade, speaking for the board. “Ignoring norms and policies, Trump and his appointees at the Justice Department have injected strongman tactics into the administration of the law. Attorney General Todd Blanche has pointed to language in the Constitution that vests the executive power in a president of the United States to argue that Trump has the authority to direct all executive branch agencies, including the Department of Justice. But Blanche overlooks another provision of Article II, which requires the president to ‘take care’ that the laws be executed ‘faithfully.’”
Instead, McQuade says “we have seen Trump and his cronies use the DOJ to reward his allies and punish his enemies.”
“In Trump’s first month back in office, he granted pardons to more than 1,500 defendants who were convicted of crimes relating to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. That was followed by the dismissal of bribery charges against then-New York Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for an agreement to support Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda. Calling the deal a ‘quid pro quo,’ Danielle Sassoon, Trump’s own appointee as interim U.S. attorney in Manhattan, resigned, as did eight other Justice Department lawyers,” said McQuade.
Additionally, the department’s Antitrust Division approved Paramount’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros., but only after the parent company of CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and gutted 60 Minutes after both were critical of Trump.
And McQuade said the powers of the Justice Department have been used to attack those who have crossed the president.
“Baseless charges in the Eastern District of Virginia against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who secured a judgment against Trump’s company in a civil fraud case, and former FBI Director James Comey, who led the agency during its investigation into connections between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia … ” said McQuade.
Undeterred, prosecutors later indicted Comey again for allegedly threatening to kill the president by posting online a photo of seashells spelling out the numbers ‘8647.’ Other targets include former chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell, members of Congress who participated in a video accurately stating that illegal military orders may be disobeyed, and members of the intelligence community who investigated Russian election interference in 2016.
“A politicized Department of Justice erodes the rule of law when a president uses it as a tool to favor some Americans and a cudgel to punish others. Over time, people tend to grow cynical about the law and lose trust in its stewards, making it more difficult to obtain compliance and hold offenders accountable. Our society becomes less safe and less just, allowing the powerful to prey upon the vulnerable,” said McQuade.
